| After a number
of years in development, an English to Thai translation web site was
last week launched by the National Electronics and Computer Technology
Centre at its annual conference.
Known as Parsit, the project has been supported by Japanese-based NEC Corporation and will enable Thai Internet users to read English-language web sites in Thai, according to Nectec Information Research and Development Division director Dr Virach Sornlertlamvanich. He told Database that information on the Internet would be transferred to Nectec's servers to translate the language into Thai with the aid of special dictionary and grammar software. The web page would retain the original appearance. To access the Parsit service, users connect to http://www.links.nec tec.or.th/services/parsit, from where they choose the site that they want translated. Parsit will download the original graphics on the page and translate the text. "Unlike English, the structure of a Thai sentence has no space between the words, so the language synthesis is done by sentence and not by word," said Dr Virach, adding that the dictionary and grammar programs are vital. He believed that the Parsit program would broaden the use of the Internet among Thai users. The service is expected to be implemented by Internet service providers (ISPs) and complement existing Thai search engines. The Parsit project will also partner with bestiland.com, a multi-language translation site supported by NEC. Bestiland.com is composed of several language translation projects including Crossroad, which translates English into Japanese; Systran, a European site that turns English into French, German, Italian, or Spanish; and Kodensha, which is used for translating Korean into Chinese. Bestiland.com will be launched on July 1. |
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